In paragraph 5, the vines covered the wooden frame "like a green curtain." What does this phrase mean?

Understand Words and Language Structures · TELPAS Grades 6–7 reading. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.

Reporting category 1: work out what words and phrases mean from context, and understand how sentences and word forms work.

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Bitter Melon

On Saturday mornings, Danny's grandfather, whom he called Ông, rode the bus to a community garden on the east side of Houston. This spring, Danny's mother said that Danny had to go with him.

Danny did not see the point. The grocery store down the street sold vegetables in neat plastic bags, and nobody there had to kneel in the dirt to get them.

Ông's garden plot was small, only about as long as a car. He handed Danny a trowel and showed him how to dig a hole as deep as his finger. Into each hole went two pale seeds. "Bitter melon," Ông said. "Your grandmother's favorite."

For two weeks, nothing happened. Danny checked every Saturday and found only dirt. "Maybe the seeds were bad," he said. Ông just poured water along the rows and said, "Seeds do not listen to complaining."

In the third week, small green leaves pushed up through the soil. By June, the vines had climbed the wooden frame Ông had built and covered it like a green curtain. Bumpy, pale green melons hung underneath.

Ông picked the first melon and turned it over in his hand. Then he told Danny a story Danny had never heard: how, as a boy in Vietnam, he had helped his own grandmother grow the same vegetable behind her house, and how she had cooked it with eggs for him whenever he was sick.

That evening, Danny's mother cooked the melon with eggs. It was so bitter that Danny made a face at the first bite. Ông laughed. Danny took a second bite anyway, and then a third.

The next Saturday, Danny was waiting at the bus stop before his grandfather got there.

The question

Choose the best answer.

In paragraph 5, the vines covered the wooden frame "like a green curtain." What does this phrase mean?

  • The vines grew thick and hung down over the frame.Correct answer
  • The vines were cut into the shape of a curtain.
  • The vines were hard to see because it was dark.
  • The vines were pulled down off the frame by a strong wind.

Why “The vines grew thick and hung down over the frame.” is correct

This tests a simile. A curtain is a large piece of cloth that hangs down and covers something completely. Comparing the vines to a curtain tells the reader they grew so thick that they covered the whole frame, which also shows how much time has passed since the seeds were planted.

Why the other answers are wrong

  • The vines were cut into the shape of a curtain. — Nothing in the story says anyone cut or shaped the vines.
  • The vines were hard to see because it was dark. — The phrase describes how full the vines were, not the light.
  • The vines were pulled down off the frame by a strong wind. — No wind is mentioned; the vines climbed up the frame.

Practice more of this

More reading practice for Grades 6–7, or see the TELPAS practice test for 6th and 7th grade.

This is an independent study resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Texas Education Agency or the official TELPAS program. All questions here are original practice material written to match the published test design.